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Commentary by Wallace Redd, City Councilman, Ward 4.

“Trust in the media is so low that half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them.” – Fortune article.

Yes, today more than ever before people do not trust the media, and for good reason. The liberal-slanted media seemingly has its own agenda.

Recently, I was surprised to see some misleading and twisted headlines concerning a proposal that was added to the city’s Legislative Liaison Agenda. The proposal passed easily without much fanfare by an overwhelming majority.

One headline insinuated that there must be something nefarious going on with the one-sentence proposal. One headline read, “Why does Clarksville City Council want to keep you out of government meetings?” Never mind that the one-sentence amendment does not say that.

Local governments cannot pass any open meetings laws or keep anyone out of open meetings. The proposal was simply: “Requesting the State Legislature to allow local governments to fall under the same Sunshine Laws that they follow.” Meaning the state passes laws for themselves and different laws for local governments.

How many times have we seen federal and state legislators pass laws for everyone else but exempt themselves from the very laws that they pass? Highlighting this inconsistency was the reasoning behind the proposal.

The fake news tries to suggest that since the Legislature has exempted themselves from sunshine laws that they don’t have any open meeting laws that they follow. This is disingenuous. The General Assembly has rules that the doors must be open and can only be closed for a national emergencies and some impeachment proceedings.

This amendment was first presented before the council a full week before the voting session. If the amendment was of such a concern for the media, why didn’t they report on this before it was voted on?

In the past, a reporter would call you to get your side of the story before they threw you to the wolves. Not anymore. You see, today there is only one side of the story. Today it’s the headline that gets the most clicks that counts.

Wallace Redd

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